Night tapestry

There is now a cloth so utterly black

that all its visible contours are veiled in the dark.

A curious child, I read my favorite book

by the light of a torch, the words displayed in the dark.

Making their winter way home, groping in pockets

for keys, men and their shades in the dark.

On a square of night I am standing alone

as someone lets himself in. Assailed in the dark,

my sentences plunge like meteorites, ignited vows

rain down, trust is betrayed in the dark.

The flash of a bulb blinds my eyes; its delicate filament

hot, an incandescent braid in the dark.

Nocturnal animals wake. I hear the wolves,

see their tapeta lucida, guides in the dark.

Tell me a story of beasts and the heroes that kill them

where I will be safe inside in the dark.

(First published in Antiphon, issue 21.)